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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24775831">Turning Face</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrangeBlue/pseuds/StrangeBlue'>StrangeBlue</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Way Out There Be Dragons [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Becoming a better person, Bittersweet? Maybe?, Character Development, Companions, Developing Friendships, Don't copy to another site, Ending friendships, Forgiveness, Found Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending, How Do I Tag, Self-Hatred, Short One Shot, Sisterhood, Tags Are Hard, This was supposed to be a soft series wtf, Trauma, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, Werewolf Turning, Werewolves, Working Through Grief, letting go, loss of family</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 08:28:25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,179</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24775831</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrangeBlue/pseuds/StrangeBlue</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Dragonborn's time as a werewolf wasn't fun.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aela the Huntress &amp; Female Dovahkiin | Dragonborn, Female Dovahkiin | Dragonborn &amp; Inigo the Brave</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Way Out There Be Dragons [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1719367</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Turning Face</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Little journey back in time to when Ghorsha was first wandering the frontier of Skyrim. Listen I love Aela as a character, i love the werewolves and Hircine gig, and I love the Companions as a faction, but Ghorsha couldn't have joined at a worse point in her life.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first time she had changed her skin, it had been within the entombing stone walls of the Underforge, where the sounds of Whiterun’s nighttime hum faded to a dull muffle. Skjor stood before her, silver eyes shimmering against the pale streaks of moonlight shining in from the grate above, Aela beside him, terrible and bestial. White teeth flashing on raw shadow, yellow eyes piercing through Ghorsha’s normally towering stature, now dwarfed under her Shield Sister’s hulking form.</p><p>The stone basin rippled with something dark, something shared and forbidden. Something she’d only heard of in stories by the light of a bonfire, of howling beasts wrenching free from the bodies of man and running wild in the night.</p><p>It begged to be draught from, calling to her in a whispering murmur she’d never known before, promising power in pursuit and family in blood.</p><p>Family she had been without for so, so long.</p><p>How could she deny herself the one thing that she craved most?</p><p>She dipped both hands in, cupping the sickeningly warm liquid and drank in deep gulps, feeling the thick blood go down like molten fire. Her head pounded between her ears, her heart thumped in her chest but she did not stop. Not until her hands trembled, shook as though fevered and the moonlight above burned into her like a branding through her armor.</p><p>She stumbled, she fell. And while on her knees she could not pull her helmet off fast enough. Not while her entire face stretched, her jaw popping free from its sockets held only in place by rippling flesh. </p><p>Drool flowed from between her then clear underbite, now a great set of fangs. Her eyes bended in her skull, each joint in her fingers pulling out and elongating, nails growing long and sharp as iron. </p><p>The scream that ripped through her throat contorted on her tongue, turning to a bone chilling howl as she felt every bone in her body crunch and bend and snap like dead twigs. Her mind muddled into something wild and unhinged, longing. </p><p>Longing for the hunt, longing for blood, longing to feel the prey trembling beneath her lethal stare.</p><p><em> Patience, wolf, </em> something chided. <em> Your sister calls. </em></p><p>And call she did in a snarling beckon to follow, out away from the city, towards the dark horizon where the prey awaited. The earth caved softly under her claws, upturning in hills as the chase stretched on.</p><p>Whatever it had been had died swiftly, sating her in a way that nothing else had. And when she’d awoken at her sister’s side the next day, shivering and aching, a part of her wanted to do that all over again.</p><p>She learned to live with it, the breaking of bone becoming a near routine as she dared not fight against her family’s gift, fight against herself.</p><p>When she met Inigo, he was a sad and lonely soul, so much like herself to the extent that she questioned if they’d met before. He knew loss, knew pain and prejudice, and he felt these things stronger than others she’d met before. His self blame was identical to her own, he’d lost his family too.</p><p>When Skjor had died on the same night she had first turned it had been Aela who’d urged her on, goading her to finish the ones who had ended his life, taking their condensed anger and grief out on them. This had cost them dearly and Ghorsha had one more tally to add to the pile of the lost who’s deaths she took blame: Sisters and brothers, chieftain and mother, and then Kodlak.</p><p>She loved her Shield Sister, but did not find her actions to be in good health. This she realized far too late though, only as they surrounded the Skyforge and chanted for his passing. She withdrew from the Circle’s calling sooner than the funeral pyre snuffed out, needing only to be alone.</p><p>Inigo was different. He weathered his grief, rather than fought it. He confided in her, rather than swallowing it. She soon found herself doing the same, in small doses. Then for the first time since returning to the burned remains of her Stronghold, she allowed herself to cry. They both needed to heal, they both needed a friend. She wished she'd found him sooner, prayed he’d accept her for what she was.</p><p>Late one night when Secunda was on the brink of full, she finally told him what she was, what she’d taken into herself. She worried he’d hate her as she told him of her slaughter of the Silver Hand under the guise of a wolf. He said he already knew, smelled the curse the moment they’d first met.</p><p>“You were hurting,” he’d said. “You knew you did wrong, and you’re doing better.”</p><p>“I was scared to tell you,” she said. “I thought you’d see me as a monster.”</p><p>“In my experience, monsters hide under beds and skuttle in caves. Monsters do not care who they’ve hurt, so long as it serves them.”</p><p>This made her feel better, only by a little. She still felt sick, looking back. Dirty and ugly.</p><p>“I want to make things right. I want to try and make things better.”</p><p>“Then you’ve already proven yourself wrong, my friend. I know you can do it.”</p><p>There in the tomb with her only family in the world she met Kodlak one last time. She would have been begging for forgiveness were her heart not still pounding from the heat of battle. She burned the witch’s head and watched its face smother to ash, a mirroring of the ceremony she’d walked away from months prior. </p><p>She watched the wolf split from his spirit, and cleaved the head from its neck when its jaws emerged. Arrows whizzed by her head all the while as she undid what she had done.</p><p>When it was finally over, he named her Harbinger, a title she took with an almost disconnected nod, which only later would blossom into pride with the given honor. She watched his ghostly blue form fade away, leaving her with a choice.</p><p>Aela’s sudden hug was vice tight after hours of silence between them, making her ribs creak beneath her armor. An apology exchanged in the only way she knew how. She accepted it, though almost bit her tongue.</p><p>She let go of the blood that day, even though she didn’t want to at first. She didn’t want to be alone again, wandering the world without a family.</p><p>But as Inigo pulled her up from the stone floor, held her shoulders to steady her, she realized she didn’t have to.</p><p>Aela was forgiven and still her sister in spirit, but she would never lodge within Jorrvaskr again. This she would promise herself, guiding the Companions from a distance so that she herself could breathe.</p><p>As the salty air downwind of the Sea of Ghosts filled her lungs and cleared her then dulled senses, riding side by side with her best friend, she felt freer than she’d ever been for the first time in years.</p>
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